Twitter is a fickle monster. One day it can take you from zero to everywhere in a matter of minutes, the next it can throw you down and pummel you into a pariah. Let’s take a look at those who have used Twitter as a springboard, those who have used Twitter to create a self-inflicted gunshot wound and those who fall somewhere between.

The Good

Katherine Webb, Miss Alabama 2012, went from a relative nobody on Twitter to having more than 90,000 followers during the National Championship BCS game, back in January 2013. As she sat in the audience, announcer Brent Musburger referred to her as a “lovely lady” and “beautiful.” By the next day, Katherine’s Twitter following had jumped from 2,000 to 175,000 followers. She was also the number one trending search on Google.

Her new-found notoriety caused Donald Trump to offer her a position as a Miss USA Judge. She was also offered an opportunity to cover Super Bowl XLVII for Inside Edition and landed a spot as an ABC contestant on Splash. She even appeared as a model in the 2013 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. In response she tweeted:

“Thank you for everything you’ve done and for helping my career and helping me make a new life for myself. I was actually having a hard time in Los Angeles booking jobs. After all this happened, people started calling.”

For every story of somebody using Twitter as a launchpad, though, there are twenty stories of people using it as a plank. Let’s take a look at some of those.

The Bad

Following the Penn State child abuse scandal, Joe Paterno was sacked for not reporting what he knew to police. When Penn State retaliated by firing him, Kutcher took the opportunity to prove just how little he pays attention to national news. He tweeted:

“How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste.”

The angry tweets poured in, Ashton quickly realized his mistake and removed the posting, but the damage was done. CBS news and the Huffington Post picked up the story and people all over the country were shaking their heads in disbelief. Kutcher did tweet an apology though:

“As an advocate in the fight against child sexual exploitation, I could not be more remorseful for all involved in the Penn St. case. As of immediately I will stop tweeting until I find a way to properly manage this feed. I feel awful about this error. Won’t happen again.”

It says something about his character that he was willing to admit that he’s too ill-informed to be trusted to handle his own tweets.

We loved Jim Carey for decades. We loved him back when he bent over and talked through his rear. We loved him when he tried to keep from forgetting Kate Winslet and when he brought the Grinch to life. Some of the love stopped after he signed up for a Twitter account.

His rants were always a little weird from attempts at existentialism, to blaming Elin Nordegren for Tiger’s many infidelities, to outright proclaiming that people with different political views should die. Strangely, all of his tweets seem to have an odd emoticon with them.

It’s like looking into the butt of Ace Ventura. It seems this has had an effect on his career; his latest movie was one of his lowest openings at the box office. And, this is what Carey has said in the way of an apology:

“To anyone whose grievances have chosen me as their cause, I would say first, that I recognize that tendency in myself, but if you knew me well, you’d see that your resentment has been misplaced. I wish every human being nothing but love and immeasurable happiness. Now, I’m going to re-enter the Twitter stream and see if there is anyone left to offend!”

Well we can’t all learn from our mistakes, can we?

The Ugly

In 2011, New York Congressman, Anthony Weiner tweeted his privates to several women. His account was then ostensibly hacked and a picture of him wearing his underoos was posted on Twitter’s picture service Yfrog. It was immediately removed, but Weiner’s political career was damaged. Website access, it seems, causes some people to lose all semblance of self-control. Here are some choice quotes from the fallout:

“Something about Facebook and social media led me to do things I would never do in real life. I’m still trying to understand it.”

“The actions that had led me into this place were wrong,” said Weiner. “They were dishonorable, they were dishonest to my wife Huma first and foremost. And they were, by extension, dishonest to you and to my constituents and for that I’m very sorry… Think I’ll be spending a lot of time, from here on out, saying I’m sorry.”

Following the devastating Tsunami, earthquake and nuclear meltdown in Japan, comedian Gilbert Gottfried decided to show just how classy he was by posting a number of “jokes” on the situation:

“Japan called me. They said ‘maybe those jokes are a hit in the U.S., but over here, they’re all sinking.'”

“I was talking to my Japanese real estate agent. I said ‘is there a school in this area.’ She said ‘not now, but just wait.'”

This turned out to be an awful career move, considering his biggest paycheck at the time was as the talking duck for Aflac. The company actually gets 75 per cent of its revenue from the Japanese market, so of course Gottfried was on the chopping block. And, what did he have to say about his mistweets?

“I was born without a censor button. My mouth and now e-mail will continue to get me into trouble.”

Was that a statement worth making? It might seem like a huge power trip to tweet every random thought that leaks out of your head and have people follow it. Just be careful and make sure that you use tact and think twice before you hit send. You can never untweet.